00:00
00:00
nightsavior
Fool,chronicler,character concept carpenter,tale-spinner,and meme spitter! Social as a lizard,one quarter wizard!

Age 46, Male

Rambling idea guy

Joined on 6/5/04

Level:
19
Exp Points:
3,820 / 4,010
Exp Rank:
13,599
Vote Power:
6.09 votes
Rank:
Civilian
Global Rank:
> 100,000
Blams:
0
Saves:
7
B/P Bonus:
0%
Whistle:
Normal

Comments

Hey there! I mean I used to be heavy introvert and I still am. But after years and years of being more or less forced to deal with people, Ive started to really enjoy random social interactions. Once I got the heavy anxiety off of me it became more of a skill I wanted to explore and eventually I got reasonably good at it. Im still introvert in nature and prefer time spent alone though. However, dealing with people taught me many, many things, good and bad, and I cant imagine running my brain engine without all the shit Ive learned :3

Ah,there are times I can enjoy interacting with people. But even if it's a good encounter I tend to feel exhausted afterwards. Once in awhile there's an exception to that rule but it is rare. I have been charming in certain situations but that's more of an irregularity. lol. There are a lot of cute females that work at my grocery store and to my credit I make eye contact and hold a conversation. Albeit I tend to talk about the most inoffensive boring crap imaginable! I suppose the trick to all of it is "letting people in",even if you're kind of afraid they might see something they don't immediately like or understand. Still it's probably better being the weird interesting guy than the milquetoast bland guy! Thanks for sharing your story,Ratcaller! I'm glad you were able to eventually kick your heavy anxiety to the curb!

@Ratcaller @nightsavior I mean its still there but its manageable, at least for now!
Also I guess you're right. I barely think about it anymore, I'll just go with the flow the best way I can and I react spontaneously depending on their actions and first impressions I get. The way they speak, body language, eye contact, tone of their voice, if they are actually paying attention, if they do something odd, everything and THEN I'll adjust myself to the situation and see what can I do with that individual.

Also, why do you feel exhausted? Shouldnt talking to the right people actually make you more lively and chipper?

We're all wired differently. But no, it's not uncommon for introverts to feel drained by social encounters,even if those social encounters are not overly negative. I suppose it also has to deal with how many people that are interacted with at one time. In general 3 or 5 is a manageable number for me. Anything "party sized" though exceeds my general comfort levels unless there's something to do to keep me entertained or distracted. Are you positive you were not just "shy" but actually a people person all along? That's my general impression but you know you better than anyone else!

@Ratcaller @nightsavior @nightsavior Welp, It is possible. But even if it was just shy-ness it was pretty bad. I had fucking panic attacks before I talked to someone I did not know. I was superanxious when waiting in the line for groceries. All types of social interactions were absolute nightmare for me, I had no idea how I'm functional today, looking at it back :D. BUT I still prefer time on me own, and even knowing the social skill, being around too many people makes me braindead. I just shut down, don't talk, just stumble to the nearest exit If I can that is.
Large groups of people drain me very fast and make me really numb. The thing is I don't intentionally expose myself to that cause I know what it does to me.

Now you described your symptoms better I definitely believe ya,mate! I was the same way in college, I tried to go to night clubs to see what all the fuss was about but it was too loud and I often felt completely drained. Only good thing about that particular club is it had a few SNK arcade cabinets so I got to play me some Samurai Shodown 4 and Last Blade. Once I returned home eventually many of the friends I was comfortable with moved away. One moved back to Newyork and the other moved to Tennessee. Alex (My bestie) and I also befriended a few other guys but many of them had to go off to college. Two of these guys were odd as all they wanted to do was table-top roleplay yet they were not all that great at it. When Alex didn't have ideas I'd offer them to play some games with me on the xbox 360 but they never accepted that invitation. (Which was strange as I did have at least a few games they actually liked) So on days with no rp we'd just sit around kind of awkwardly breaking the silence with random chatting once in awhile. We never hear much from them anymore either,sadly.